Thread by @TraceyLeeHolmes

Thread 3…for those who like a good saga on a Twitter long thread…

For the best part of three years the AFL controlled management of the affair, preventing Hird and others from speaking freely. 
 
Only 48 hours after the blackest day press conference, the spotlight was already being focussed on the #Essendon players and coach Hird.

With reports head office wanted the players to be protected, Hird was asked in the 2016 interview whether he believed he had become the scalp they were after.
 
“I don't believe, I was told I was going to be the scalp,” Hird said.
 
Who told you that?

“I was rung by David Evans (Essendon chairman) a couple of weeks later on our way to the GWS game and was asked to tell the players that they were going to be okay.”
 
Evans was in Canberra meeting with officials about the ASADA investigation.

“So I got the players in the Virgin lounge and said, David has said you are going to be okay. Nothing will happen. Now I don't know why I was asked to to say that…because they wouldn't tell me why.

“I was then told by Gillon McLachlan that this is about the optics. And, later on, that ‘you're the person’.

Hird continued… “‘How would it look if the person that has been the highest profile athlete or personality at the Essendon Football Club escaped sanction? We know you haven't done much wrong, but how would it look?’”

When players were cleared by the domestic independent tribunal it seemed the AFL had got what it wanted, a high-profile scalp to appease those baying for blood, while the players were free to return allowing the game – and the headlines - to move on.

But when the world anti-doping agency, WADA, appealed to CAS the AFL was playing a new game with new rules they weren’t familiar with. The AFL did not have on speed-dial those running the world of sports law. There could be no influence from their side brought to bear.

The rest is history. The Essendon 34 were labelled dopers. Hird was not named in the WADA case against Essendon, neither was he ever given an infraction notice from ASADA.

But to this day public opinion is that he was either compliant in a doping program, negligent in letting it happen, or naïve about its existence.

In 2016 he said he understood why people thought about him that way.
 
“One of the really disappointing things in this case is that we as a football club, and I know the people, are so anti drugs, the people involved, the players who are the ultimate victims, are so anti drugs.

“So for the players to be labelled as drug cheats hurts. We support ASADA in investigating clubs. What we don't support is the way this investigation went about.”

From day one stories were being leaked, confidential information was being given to AFL friendly media, and ASADA was forced to issue a reminder that publicly releasing confidential information could be punished with up to two years in jail.

“So people have formed views about my role due to what they've been told in the media. Now, I can't say I'm upset with what their view is, because I know what's been written.

“And it was a tidal wave of information that we just weren't able to, or allowed to, respond to.”

At the time of the interview he said the experience had changed him, he had become a lot harder, he doesn’t trust as much, but ultimately, he said, he still put’s faith in good values and good people. Those good people are the ones whose wise counsel he is now seeking, no doubt.

Some will advise that he is the one who can heal the division, that this is his chance to be absolved.
 
Others will remind him of the machine that chewed up and spat out a once favourite son, and warn him of the consequences of putting himself in that position again.

Ultimately, should James Hird be offered the job in the coming days or weeks, he will have to make peace with his own mind and whether he would accept or not.

Much water has passed under the bridge in the decade gone, but Hird’s analysis in 2016 is likely to have remained the same.

I’m not sure absolution will come for myself in this story. I think enough people have believed what they believe but…I don’t want history to view the players as being drug cheats. Because they’re not…And they did nothing wrong.”

The full interview can be seen here

or heard on The Ticket podcast where ever you get your podcasts from.

Hope you enjoyed the Sunday long read😎